Spider, monkeys, cats, dogs and guarding macaws
Amazonas, Colombia 🇨🇴: The trip to Puerto Narino was full of adventures and despite our best intentions, we didn’t get there in daylight. We’ll tell you about that some other time because it’s also a good story. Anyway, we got to our cabin long after dark. A word of introduction and explanation is due here. We booked a cabin outside the village, in the middle of the jungle. Why? Well, we wanted adventure. The first choice fell on another, even more remote and hardcore place, but there was no communication with the owner and we were afraid that we would end up in the jungle without any roof over our heads, and that would be maybe a little too much of an adventure for us. Here at least we knew that someone would be waiting for us to guide us through the jungle.
At least that’s what we thought would happen. Eventually, some boy, who didn’t speak much of any language known to us, dragged us to his dugout canoe and sailed with us into the darkness of the night. After this event, once again, Kasia and I awarded each other the Parent of the Year award (we give ourselves this title when we do something stupid as parents). Luckily we got to the place we were supposed to be. Wet, dirty, and tired, but pumped up. Feeling almost like Indiana Jones, hahaha. It was a hell of a day with a hell of an end.
Cabanas Alto del Aguila
Simple and clean huts in the jungle, about 3km outside of Puerto Narino. Mosquito nets without holes. Steel nets in windows, separating us from the local fauna, also without holes. No rain upon our heads… who needs more!
But… as we entered the bathroom, the jungle adventure began. There, on the throne (read: the toilet seat), was King SPIDER. About the size of my hand and a half…. ok, it’s not the first time we’ve seen the giant spider. The procedure is simple, developed long ago in Thailand, and very effective so far, good for anything from insects to snakes – a stick and noise.
Live and let live…
Kasia and Vincent retreated to the back of the room because you should know that Vincent suffers from undiagnosed, not very serious, but unmissable arachnophobia, which we have to respect. It comes and goes, depends a bit on… hmm I don’t know what, but it is not permanent.
“Stick and noise” usually works fine, but not this time. As soon as I started to make noise, the spider, instead of escaping into the hole, as he was supposed to, chose a frontal attack on my humble person. There was no time to think. The choice was between looking for a spider and most likely sleepless night, or… my shoe. Instinct kicked in. The crisis was averted. However, Vincent woke up our hosts with a single scream. They rushed in thinking that something big attacked us. In order to have a good night’s sleep, we didn’t ask them what animal they thought it was. We managed to convince Vincent that there are no more spiders in the hut, and he fell asleep a few minutes after.
By the way, we stayed in this hut for the next 7 days and we were visited only by frogs. Word of the deadly shoe was passed on into the jungle. So much for “live and let live”…
The mob
The next day we found out that a whole bunch of animals lived there next to people. There was a flock of monkeys, a few dogs, and kittens. Vincent was delighted! A small tawny owl lived in under the roof of the main building. The owner regularly shared the meat leftovers with a pair of falcons, which lived in nearby trees. Animals chose to live close to people, for obvious reasons, but still – they were free and wild. Not a tourist attraction. I’d call it: living close to nature. This whole animal mafia was ruled by two giant macaws. Blue and Red.
Macaw attack
The first day we didn’t notice them, because it was already dark when we arrived. Then the whole story with the spider finished us off. We fell asleep exhausted. In the morning, or rather, at dawn, because the jungle makes the best alarm clock, as soon as we opened our eyes, Red was sitting on the window, clinging to the steel mesh. Huge. She was watching us! We left our hut for breakfast and were about to enter the main building when Blue jumped out from under the stairs and mercilessly pounced on our shoes! She defended the entrance door like the best guarding dog. We managed to bypass it and get to that breakfast. Inside, fruits. Straight from the garden, the jungle. Bananas, papayas, pineapples, and coffee. Manuel and Dona Elena were amused by me, struggling with parrots. “They just pluck,” they said. Just pluck – my a…. 😉
Revenge
Macaws had their preferences. Somehow, Kasia and Vincent could walk freely, while I was regularly bothered by both. Red was extremely cheeky. One day I left the hut with a beautiful, fresh, fragrant, still warm donut. Suddenly, this big bird landed on my shoulder. She snatched my donut and fled, leaving me quite speechless and empty-handed. I bet it was revenge for that spider! Short cycle karma! Live and let live… 🙂 🙂 🙂
Marcin
